How did an MVNO start-up with only 100,000 subscribers pass up the big boys such as Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile at CTIA Wireless? By announcing the only truly innovative product at show, the Helio Ocean. The unofficial "Best of CTIA 2007 Award" definitely goes to Helio.

Every person I spoke with at CTIA Wireless this week in Orlando, Fla., was disappointed with the show. The reasons varied from person to person, but the overall lack of enthusiasm was felt across the board. Foot traffic seemed slow on the show floor all three days, and there was simply no industry-changing announcements made. Is the pace of innovation slowing?

Mobile network operators will soon have one more weapon in the their arsenal to blanket every last square inch of the US with network coverage. First was the general macro network environment. Then, as people realized that the macro network doesn't always penetrate large buildings or reach high into the sky and fill office towers with signal, the picocell evolved. Now, for those who have weak coverage at remote office or home locations, the femtocell is beginning to see some early light in the m

MarketWatch columnist John Dvorak argues that Apple should just make the iPhone a reference design and move on. Why, you may ask, would Apple want to walk away from the hottest mobile device in years? Because it isn't equipped to handle the demands of the nonstop mobile phone market, that's why.

It's been an interesting week for the two giants slugging it out in the business software marketplace. First Oracle filed suit against SAP for intellectual property intrusions into its Internet-based repository of product support information... Also this week came the resignation of Shai Agassi, the president of SAP's product and technology group. It was hardly a surprise.

I have finally settled back into New York after a jam-packed visit to this year's CTIA Wireless in Orlando, Fla. One of the big stories in the wider media that, surprisingly, didn't generate much insider buzz at CTIA was the on-going war to capture the emerging mobile search market.

I'm updating my BPMS Report series on BPMInstitute.org to the new-and-improved 2007 version. A major change from last year is a beefed-up evaluation scoring. I've discovered that many users go straight to the scorecard at the end of the 25-page report to find out which product "won?" It's probably asking for trouble, but I'm posting my new methodology right here so readers can comment.

If there was any sort of theme at CTIA this year, it was that music is in. Many of the phones announced at the show are aimed at the mid-tier music lover, rather than the high-end business user. I guess the wireless industry thinks we're not getting enough of our groove on.

Eighty-three years old and looking remarkably hale -- a lifetime of golf, tennis, and fishing in Kennebunkport will do that for you, I guess -- George H.W. Bush wowed the crowd at CTIA Wireless 2007 with a combination of jokes about his unlikely partnership with former president Bill Clinton, anecdotes about his time in office, and stories of how wireless communications technology played roles in the momentous events that occurred during his time in office, including the aftermath of the end of

When I arrived at the Orange County Convention Center at 8:30 this morning, a queue stretched about two miles from the entrance to Hall D, scene of the keynotes for CTIA Wireless 2007, snaking through the endless corridors of the immense building. The show-goers were lined up to see Elvis, a.k.a. former President Bill Clinton, who's addressing the convention this morning.
Oh, former President George H.W. Bush is on the agenda this morning, too, but there's no question who the real rock star is.

Viacom CEO Phillipe Dauman said his company is serious about wireless during his keynote address today at CTIA Wireless. Dauman opened his address with an amusing video intro by Jon Stewart and a camera trick designed to make the audience see how small Dauman would appear on a mobile phone screen.

…any more than, say, CEO stands for Capability Eludes Opportunity or CFO means Clever Financial Obfuscation - okay, maybe there's something in that last one… On the other hand, neither does CIO stand for Completely Infallible and Omniscient; CIO's need guidance, too. Here's a plethora of educational resources, including a new book on CIO Best Practices.

Yesterday evening at CTIA Wireless, Kyocera invited a select group of tech journalists to a small cocktail reception with the express purpose of showing off its new direction. Based on the short presentations from its marketing and design heads, its evident that Kyocera wants to reinvent itself and start standing toe to toe with the bigger, mor

Game designer Jane McGonigal has a vision for a new generation of network games that will pull players away from their lonely consoles, and get them out in the world, interacting with each other and changing their own lives, and society, for the better.

It's been a busy CTIA show so far. While there has been lots of activity, I haven't seen much in terms of real breaking news or highlights. So far, the appearance of the iPhone -- only the device's second public showing since January -- has been this CTIA's biggest news item.
But If you want the real news at CTIA, you have to get off the show floor, walk out of the press room, and head over to some part

I was able to get my hands on the One Laptop Per Child $100 laptop at the O'Reilly ETech conference today. I took pictures, and they came out great -- take a look for yourself below the fold. The OLPC looks like a toy, with its hard plastic enclosure, soft plastic keyboard, bright colors, and handle. But it's a fully functional computer, designed for children in the emerging world.

The incredible lack of smartphones at this year's CTIA is beyond disappointing. However, there were a few Windows-powered devices announced for the US market from HTC , which seems to be holding the lone banner of enterprise mobility at CTIA Wireless 2007.

Nokia has been hard at work behind the scenes to realign its business strategy in the US market to gain some traction with US carriers and consumers. After speaking to a Nokia rep today at CTIA Wireless, it's evident that they do indeed want to succeed here.

The market shift toward business process management suites is expected to leave many pure-play BPM vendors behind, particularly as major infrastructure vendors start flexing their muscles in the market

Everything is bigger in Texas, including the sprawling hotel that's hosting the RFID World conference and the quarter-sized spider camped outside my room's window. Also big are the dreams of a lot of little software and hardware vendors who've come here to Dallas to hawk their wares. My guess is that within a few years, many of these vendors will join with others or, sadly, cease to exist.

Just in case you thought the iPhone wasn't hanging out at CTIA, think again. During today's keynote addresses, the iPhone made a rare public appearance. Like a silver screen diva from Hollywood's golden age, the iPhone is a source of public hysteria wherever it goes.

The BI industry has long been rife with companies suing one another. Most recently, Hyperion and HyperRoll squabbled about patent infringements, finally agreeing to become partners. Business Objects and MicroStrategy kept counter suing each other over a period of five years, with both parties ultimately declaring victory and neither having to pay one another. Last week, Oracle joined the cacophony by filing claim against SAP.

Today at CTIA Wireless, Palm announced that it is providing an update for Windows Mobile users of the Treo 750. The update includes Windows Mobile 6 and a software key to upgrade the radio to HSDPA speeds.

Coming to you live from the Tuesday morning keynote session at CTIA Wireless 2007 in Orlando. This is my fourth CTIA, best I can recall, and each year the stage props get bigger, the music gets more pounding, and the crowds get larger. At last fall's CTIA, in Los Angeles, we were joined by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. This year's edition will have a political cast as well: those strange bedfellows (and former

The CTIA Wireless show had its unofficial kick-off last night at the Mobile Focus event at Orlando's Peabody Hotel. There was a surprising lack of news from the mini-show floor, and there wasn't even any good industry gossip. What gives?

I recently sat in on a keynote presentation by Thomas Davenport of Babson College, who wrote a much-touted article on analytics in Harvard Business Review last year. He identified analytics as a competitive market advantage and illustrated his point with some case studies. It's certainly important to recognize their value, but analytics alone are only a small part of what is missing in business today.

Rich Internet applications promise interfaces that are more responsive, productive and adaptable to various deployment environments. SAP executives Dennis Moore, General Manager of Emerging Solutions, and Andrew Cabanski-Dunning, marketing director for NetWeaver User Productivity Solutions, discuss the required back-end infrastructure, and they reveal plans for Ajax-powered portal functionality to be introduced at next month's Sapphire event.

Right now I am heading out the door to CTIA Wireless 2007 in sunny Orlando, Florida (also known as Disneytown, USA and Las Vegas East). As I was packing my belongings, I decided to jot down a list of the wireless news and trends I expect to see down in Orlando.

InfoWorld has announced that their April 2 issue will be the last to appear in print. The magazine follows in the footsteps of Intelligent Enterprise in going on-line only. Like IE, InfoWorld cites the advertisers' desire for "more immediate gratification and measureable results than print can afford them." Yet there's another important factor to on-line delivery that InfoWorld does not explore: reader preferences.

While the Bush administration may not be capable of saying "Oops, we screwed up," it seems that another part of the federal government -- the U.S. Copyright Review Board -- might have had a change of heart. After facing a storm of outrage, the board this week agreed to review its decision to impose staggering new royalty payments on I

I'm so excited I could just plotz -- I actually had a chance to field-test Jott yesterday and it worked like a champ. Jott is a new service that lets you phone in and record a 15-second sound bite, which it transcribes using speech recognition and then e-mails the text back to you. I used it to record an idea while I was driving to the dentist, and by gosh I had that e-mail waiting for me when I got back to my desk.

Yesterday Nokia finally released its fully featured flagship phone, the N95. It may not have a touch screen and slick Apple GUI, but the N95 is as close to an iPhone killer as you're going to get. Its drool-worthy spec list checks off every major functionality a so-called "multimedia computer" should have, including the Symbian Series 60 3rd Edition operating system, a 5-megapixel

Remember the hullabaloo that was made over Verizon Wireless' V Cast Mobile TV service a few weeks ago? The second-largest U.S. carrier began offering its mobile TV service in select markets on one handset beginning March 1. Today, it made the second mobile TV-capable handset available, the LG vx9400, for $200. Too bad Verizon didn't m

As InformationWeek Government readers were busy firming up their fiscal year 2015 budgets, we asked them to rate more than 30 IT initiatives in terms of importance and current leadership focus. No surprise, among more than 30 options, security is No. 1. After that, things get less predictable.